Ashley M. Jones

Ashley Michelle Jones (born 1990) is an American poet and activist. She is the first Black Poet Laureate of Alabama (2022–2026) and the youngest person to hold this position. to parents Donald and Jennifer Jones. Her father, John, was the chief of the Midfield Fire & Rescue Service and mother, Jennifer, worked as a social worker. Jones is the second eldest of four children, and they were raised in the Birmingham-area neighborhoods of Midfield and Roebuck. Jones's mother taught her to read and write by the age of three, and she began writing books by the time she was in second grade. At age eight, Jones found her love for poetry through poets such as Eloise Greenfield and began experimenting with poetry writing. In the sixth grade, the poem she wrote for a class caused her teacher to recommend that she apply to the Alabama School of Fine Arts. for her seventh-grade year and studied there until she graduated. Upon graduation, she obtained her bachelor's degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2012. Her bachelor's degree summa cum laude was in Creative Writing, with a Spanish minor. Following her bachelor's degree, Jones decided to continue her education and received her M.F.A in poetry from Florida International University in 2017, where she was a John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Fellow.

Career From 2013–2015, she served as the Official Poet for the City of Sunrise, Florida's Free Little Libraries Initiative .

Jones has published three books of poetry, Magic City Gospel (2017), dark//thing (2019), and Reparations Now!(2021). In 2022 Jones started the Alabama Poetry Delegation to allow poets in Alabama to share their work with others in the state.

Activism Jones is a dedicated activist that focuses on social justice initiatives. She worked with a worldwide program called One Hundred Thousand Poets for Change, which sponsored an event where people across the globe shared their work that focused on social justice. In her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, she helped turn this event into a fundraiser that benefitted multiple organizations. She worked with immigrant justice, where inmates within the Etowah County Detention Center wrote letters that were read. Her poetry covers various different subject matters. She has written both celebrations of love and family and deeper works exploring the atrocities that Black men and women face in America. She has written sonnets that are based in love, but explore darker realities such as lynchings and violent acts toward the Black population in America. Although she recognizes the traumatic past the South possesses for Black people, her poetry now serves as a celebration of the region she calls home. Growing up, she struggled to take ownership of her southern identity; however, she has now found a way to recognize this part of herself through her poetry. Magic City Gospel explores blackness, history, and identity through Jones's personal lens. She examines historical and personal accounts of the history of her home state, Alabama, and explores her life experiences as a native Southerner. She believes this collection serves as a "Love letter to Birmingham, Alabama,"

dark//thing Jones's second book is dark//thing which was published in February 2019. This work won the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize for Poetry. This collection of poetry seeks to explore the way our society perceives different aspects of Blackness, but does not truly see them. This book, at its core, is an exploration of what it truly means to be Black in America, and the impact that has on human experience. Jones seeks to examine what allows Black people to be seen as less than whole, and the racist ideologies that uphold this sense of otherness. She affirms elements of Blackness and condemns the ideals that have and continue to allow Black people to be treated as lesser than.

Reparations Now! Reparations Now! is Jones's third published collection of poetry, which was released in September 2021.

Essays "When God Calls My Name" (Scalawag Magazine) "A Haiku for Sister Sonia Sanchez" (Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal) "Anything She Didn't Want to Do, She Don't Have To: Finding Voice, Agency, and Blackness in the Life and Poems of Lucille Clifton" (Mentor and Muse) "KKK Editorial is America's Problem, Not Just Alabama's" (CNN) "Heaven is a Black Woman's Smile" (River Mouth Review) "Amanda Gorman Reminded America What Poetry Can Do" (CNN)

Awards and honors Jones has received multiple awards throughout her career. They include: The 2015 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award. The 2018 Lucille Clifton Poetry Prize from Backbone Press Finalist in the Ruth Lilly Dorothy Sargent Rosenburg Fellowship. The Lucille Clifton Legacy Award from St. Mary's College in Maryland Poetry fellowship from the Alabama State Council of the Arts The 2020 Alabama Library Association Author Award